Snap Judgments - Auburn 42, ULM 14

The Tigers improved to 9-2 yesterday with a 42-14 victory over Louisiana-Monroe in the next-to-last home game of the season. Now it’s time to turn our attention to the Iron Bowl, because it was apparent that the team’s attention was on the Tide for much of the contest yesterday.

What did our contributors think?

EMILY RIOS

I was at the game today. They were sleepy and sloppy to start. It was frustrating but not surprising. It was an 11 am kick after the biggest win in 4 years, headed straight to an Iron Bowl showdown.

Once Stidham hit that drive at the end of the second quarter, everyone woke up. It was fun to see Malik Willis and Kam Martin, even if I wished they had been able to play more.

If the injuries aren’t significant, I think we’re still in a good place for next week.

JAMES JONES

Won, no one seemed to get super hurt. That’s a win to me.

TUCO

The team showed up for the second half; the students didn’t show up at all. I wish they could Have rested Kerryon more. Kam Martin looks really, really good. He’s doesn’t have five star size or strength but he is really quick and has a lot of heart. He reminds me of Corey Grant. He needs more carries.

It’s hard to tell what the impact of today’s injuries will be on the Iron Bowl but that’s another’s day’s problem.

DR. Z

The first half was lackluster for sure. I thought the 2 minute drill at the end of the 1st half got Auburn going.

Really nice to see Cam Martin’s burst of speed. He adds a different dimension to the offense... if we’d only use him.

I really like Malik Willis. It’s Nick Marshall 2.0

Here’s hoping Sensei, Tre, Dinson et. al are good to go for another Mother of all Iron Bowls.

By the way we got to watch this one from the club level right behind the student section. I’m not accustomed to such opulence. The buffet line is sublime. It’s like a Disney Cruise up there. My 7 year old son ate 25 brownies.

RYAN STERRITT

Maybe I'm still seeing everything through orange and blue glasses after last week, but it's hard for me to be *too* upset with the first half. It was the vanilla of all vanilla offensive game plans, with screens and runs being the only play calls. As someone else said, the last drive before the half was huge and got everyone into the "lets just take care of business and not get cute" mindset.

Credit to ULM. They came out with a plan to neutralize the Auburn offense and did it for almost a half. I was not expecting them to fly to the ball as quickly as they did yesterday. It might have just been something that passed the eye test, but they looked ready to play.

Hopefully the guys can heal up and get ready to play this weekend. For my last game as a student, I couldn't have asked for anything more.

SON OF CROW

It was good to see auburn decide to score when it needed to at the end of the second. Let me know they had this in the bag.

Wish we wouldn’t do this every time we play a sunbelt team. Kinda want a 56-0 of our own.

Anyway now we dive together headlong into a stress nightmare iron bowl. Bama is the shadow monster and Stidham is Eleven. Sorry, been watching that Stranger Things.

JACK CONDON

After our first drive it seemed like it would be pretty easy, but I think the offense probably felt the same and turned off the juice after that until it was evident they needed to actually play to win.

For the second week in a row, the defense gave up an opening drive touchdown and then a garbage score and that was it. Kevin Steele’s made some fantastic adjustments after the scripted open from opposing offenses lately.

Obviously, I would’ve liked to see zero guys limp off the field, but it doesn’t seem like anyone got maimed out there. This next weekend’s energy is going to be out of control, what with Gameday coming and the showdown for the SEC West. We won the last one of those, and Bama just absolutely hasn’t been tested by a real team this year. If we can get up on them, our defense is much more capable of holding the Tide at bay than anyone else they’ve played this year.

Won’t be able to properly enjoy Thanksgiving knowing that we’ve got this monster showdown coming up. Let’s get ‘em. War Eagle.